The pandemic of COVID-19 has hit businesses and economies hard over the globe. Remote work is the new sustainability mantra wherever possible. On one side, employees need to learn and adapt to the practice of work-from-home (WFH), while at the other end, customer expectations too have changed given the new normal.
In such a scenario, organizations across industries would do well to formulate a remote work policy for their employees, which would also include customer handling and customer management from the remote set-up. We take a look at the list of do’s and don’ts for businesses as their employees prepare to return to workplace, whether in a physical or a virtual manner.
- Embrace social distancing at all times: Irrespective of the business function that you work in as an employee, social distancing is the new mantra to conduct your business in a safe and secure manner. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in a customer-facing role, another front-line role, an operations role or a back-end role, you have to bring impact to the business while minimizing risk exposure for yourself. Many organizations have resorted to staggered shifts / working hours, and many have resorted to working at 33% or 50% staff strength, something that has been mandated by several governments too.
- Adopt remote work as much as possible: Avoid business travelling and resort to remote work practices as much as possible. If you are a programmer who needs to code stuff every day, you can very well work from home using your office laptop. Same goes true for content professionals, data scientists, accountants and digital marketers. CRM on cloud such as Salesforce.com provides enterprise level capabilities so that employees from different functions can continue to work remotely in a seamless and co-ordinated manner.
- Learn and adapt to the new normal: Be aware of the fact that the changed times are here to stay. As an employee, you’d do well to learn new skills and acquire new professional capabilities to be included in your portfolio. Some of these skills may help you directly on your current job, while others would help you stay competent and relevant in the long run. Know that as long as you keep taking all necessary precautions to keep safe from COVID-19, you can continue to serve your business and customers in a near-normal manner.
- Comply with the fresh organizational guidelines: In order to tackle the pandemic-spread and run business operations unabated, every organization would have formulated its own set of rules and guidelines as far as their employees are concerned. A lot of planning, role restructuring and work restructuring would have taken place and you’d already be knowing about it. And more changes may follow given the change in governmental mandates and the actual progress of the pandemic in your business region. As an employee, you need to both be aware of such changes as well as follow them in letter and spirit. While it’s important to continue your work responsibilities, what’s equally important is to stay receptive towards the sheer dynamism of the current scenario.
- Know the constraints of your employer too: Just as you would be facing certain constraints at work because of the overall situation and your employer is being considerate about It, you too need to keep in mind the constraints of your employer and give them the space they deserve. Employment has always been a give-and-take association, and your pending increment, promotion or appraisal could wait for another year, when the pandemic is more likely to subside and the economy is likely to start returning to normal. A few organizations have had to already resort to harsher decisions such as retrenchment and / or salary cuts, and in such a scene, you are probably better off drawing your full salary every month. Of course, when there is pressure on the entire system, everyone needs to take a part of the load, including you.
All in all, know your priorities as an employee amidst the new normal and adhere to them. The forces of technology, innovation and consulting are here to save the day and you’d do good to leverage them to the maximum. Salesforce, a premium cloud-based CRM provider for businesses across the globe, has come out with a set of custom offerings to help businesses and employees tackle and adapt to the new normal.
ABSYZ is a premier Salesforce partner that can help you derive the maximum out of your Salesforce implementations with its capabilities of consulting, execution and support in CRM on cloud space.
To know more about how ABSYZ has been helping organizations amidst changing times, contact us.
